A JUDGE has ruled Wirral Council was right to prevent the public from seeing legal emails discussing a probe into a high-profile social services scandal.

The ruling came after the council lodged an appeal against an earlier decision by data watchdog the Information Commissioner, which had found there were insufficient grounds for preventing disclosure.

The judge’s report says the tribunal agrees with the local authority.

It reveals the commissioner’s office has subsequently changed tack from its original ruling and also agrees the data, bar one minor item, should remain under wraps.

The judge wrote: “The Commissioner has changed its stance in relation to a large proportion of the withheld information and has conceded that the council is not obliged to make disclosure.”

The issue centres around written discussions between consultant Anna Klonowski and a firm of lawyers she engaged to ensure the published report of her inquiry - triggered by revelations in the Globe in 2008 by whistleblower Martin Morton - was legally sound.

Mr Morton exposed how the Department for Adult Social Services had secretly introduced a so-called “special charging policy” which, over an eight-year period, deducted around £700,000 in excessive rental payments from the bank accounts of 16 disabled residents living in supported housing in Moreton.

It stated: "I do not agree with the conclusions drawn by [Wirral] Council's Director of Law that discrimination did not occur because the residents were not overcharged for reasons relating to disability.

"Current discrimination law clearly establishes that motive and intent are irrelevant to this issue.

"The facts are that disabled people were subject to unlawful levels of charging, whether or not the cause was maladministration.

"It is the opinion of the Commission that these concerns should be included in the inquiry in order to identify whether there are other issues or systemic problems that need to be addressed."

However, Mr Smith’s findings never made it into the Klonowski report.

In fact, her review concluded there was no disability discrimination whatsoever.

It's shocking to see that the court's priorities lay with protecting powerful institutions, rather than standing up for the rights of vulnerable people, whose statutory protector, Wirral Council under portfolio holder, Steve Foulkes, repeatedly breached its own obligations over an 8 year period and plundered nigh on £750,000 from their bank accounts, then bullied, mobbed and dispensed with the whistleblower.

The ruling emphasises, "Likely to cause detriment to DLA or AKA".
It's shocking to see that the court's priorities lay with protecting powerful institutions, rather than standing up for the rights of vulnerable people, whose statutory protector, Wirral Council under portfolio holder, Steve Foulkes, repeatedly breached its own obligations over an 8 year period and plundered nigh on £750,000 from their bank accounts, then bullied, mobbed and dispensed with the whistleblower.PaulCa

It's another sad chapter isn't it. What happened to the mantra of openness and transparency?

The past few years at Wirral has been one unholy mess and I wonder when it is all going to end?

I was always taught that everyone makes mistakes in life and when you do, the best thing to do is put your hand up at the earliest chance and apologise.

There is not one person I know professionally or personally who hasn't made a mistake of one kind or another. However, it just seems that no one at Wirral is willing to do this simple thing.

It must be a terrible place to work when you can't trust your own bosses.

It's another sad chapter isn't it. What happened to the mantra of openness and transparency?
The past few years at Wirral has been one unholy mess and I wonder when it is all going to end?
I was always taught that everyone makes mistakes in life and when you do, the best thing to do is put your hand up at the earliest chance and apologise.
There is not one person I know professionally or personally who hasn't made a mistake of one kind or another. However, it just seems that no one at Wirral is willing to do this simple thing.
It must be a terrible place to work when you can't trust your own bosses.Joeblogg85

The judiciary impose one rule of law on the establishment and a different variation when dealing with the man (or woman) in the street. "British justice the best in the world"........b*lloc
ks.

The judiciary impose one rule of law on the establishment and a different variation when dealing with the man (or woman) in the street. "British justice the best in the world"........b*lloc
ks.djrimmer